Category: Freedom

Skinny Dipping Anyone?

7/29/2015

Skinny Dipping Anyone?

Dear old and new friends,

Leaders who abound today in state, church and local communities, either elected or appointed, are usually mangers or administrators. A true leader is the one who bravely does first whatever is desired or needs to be done, and then others follow him or her. When we were young we were attracted to that daring person among us who as he took his clothes off asked, “Anyone for skinny dipping?” We who were imprisoned by our fears, social morals, church laws, parental judgment or personal embarrassment were inspired by the brave one among us who had jumped in naked…and we followed him.

In your youth I’m sure you can recall such persons who because of their daring freedom were looked upon by others as a leader. The principal of this kind of liberation is awareness of the limits of what is possible, then the courage to venture a little way beyond them into what seemed impossible! The impossible can be any number of things; for example, doing something completely contrary to accepted custom. Richard Blechynden, an Englishman, had the tea concession at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. On a very hot July day not a single fairgoer was interested in a cup of hot tea. In Blechynden’s despair to save his business, as an Englishman, he did the impossible…he began selling iced tea! In these hot summer days, the next time you drink iced tea toast its inventor Richard Blechynden, and be inspired to do something impossible.

To do the unachievable requires an open mind. Is your mind opened or closed?

There was a debate in the House of Commons of the British Parliament in 1854 concerning a proposal for the government to fund an office for the collection and distribution of weather data. A British Royal Navy captain, Robert FitzRoy, had been urging Parliament to establish such an office for what he called “forecasting” the weather. An enthusiastic member of the House of Commons proposed such an office saying it could mean someday that they could know 24 hours in advance the weather for London! At that statement such loud, raucous and sustained laughter broke out they had to recess the proceedings.

Be forewarned, since to promote the impossible can make you the target for ridicule and mocking, and therefore you must have a bulletproof heart as well as an open one.

What do you think?

Possible (P)…Impossible (I)…Don’t Know (DK)

Two persons of the same sex can be happily married for life. – (P) or (I) or (DK)

Protestants and Catholics could worship together in the same parish. – (P) or (I) or (DK)

God loves atheists and agnostics as much as devout believers. – (P) or (I) or (DK)

I could have a gay or transsexual person as my best friend. – (P) or (I) or (DK)

After a long life I have the right to choose when and how I want to die. – (P) or (I) or (DK)

I should live my life viewing death as a comma, not a period. – (P) or (I) or (DK)

A Good Day to Escape

10/22/2014

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A Good Day to Escape

Dear old and new friends,

Living in Leavenworth, Kansas with its three prisons—state, federal and a maximum military facility—we are familiar with “prison breaks” when some inmate creatively finds a way to escape. October is an ideal time for your prison break!

Yes, “your” since each one of us came forth from our mother’s womb into a prison that isolated and separated us from one another, from creation and the rest of the cosmos. We are incarcerated in the prison of the Self with its inborn sense of separateness that divides us from all other life. Albert Einstein in a 1950 speech in New York City said, “A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe’; a part limited in time and space. One experiences oneself…as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of one’s consciousness…. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison.” Yet freedom is never cheap, so we resist the hard labor of escaping, of tunneling our way out to freedom. Einstein rightly calls it a “task,” and in that same speech he tells us how to gain our freedom, “…by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

A good religion is one of an evolution of consciousness, a constantly expanding of the circle of connection to others and to creation. A really good religion encourages that we become a faithful permanent escapee since the “self” always catches runaways and brings them back prison. Einstein spoke of ever-widening the circle of compassion or love as the heart of our escape plan. Whenever we encircle in a uniting love those who “appear” different by skin color, politics or religion, paradoxically we discover more clearly our true self as one with the cosmos. Einstein spoke of embracing “the whole of nature in its beauty,” which is why earlier I said October is an ideal time to escape.

The peak of autumn season is when tree tops turn into beautiful golden orange and scarlet clouds, and provide us a wonderful exercise in escaping. Upon seeing a flaming golden tree, pause and say with intensity, “How beautiful are we!” This identifying oneself with a beautiful artwork of creation instead of being simply an admiring observer is to break free! To continue escaping use it frequently and expand your escape-expressions to include peoples of other races and creatures tame and wild.

Your identity also is imprisoned—sadly shrunken—by old fashion tribalism since by its nature it excludes non-tribal others. Religion is a very powerful form of tribalism. Beliefs, dogmas and worship rituals unconsciously create frequently a regrettable spiritual superiority over those with different beliefs and forms of worship.

There is only one true religion—Love. And lovers are inescapable permanent escapees.

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Pregnant Grudges

9/10/2014

Pregnant Grudges

Dear ___________

    This is an anonymous letter to you my reader/friend for your response to my blog about searching for old grudges. You wrote that you sadly found some old, cobwebbed grudges and that inspired you to wonder if others held grudges against you! I write this as an “open” letter since I’m sure there are other readers who may be burdened with grudges.

    First let’s define a grudge: it is an imbedded feeling of resentment or malice, which enlighteningly can also mean venom, a snake’s poison. Grudge comes to us from the Middle English “gruggen” and from the Middle High German “grunzen,” which means “to grunt,” illustrating that it is a deep-seated feeling. Grudges cripple and handicap because they are weighty burdens to bear. As one can bear a child, so one can bear a grudge and be pregnant with it for years and years. We bear grudges for such a long time because the intensity of the pain or shame of the injury make it “feel” like it is impossible to forgive.

    Galilee’s village carpenter turned itinerant teacher was asked by his disciple Peter if he should forgive an offender seven times. The Teacher, perhaps from personal experience, said, “No, Peter! Not seven but seventy times…endlessly until…?” Until the injury is forgotten and removed like a dark stain by what seems like endless laundering over and over until it’s gone. Whenever you think of the offender, forgive them until that painful memory, like so many old memories, has disappeared and you are free.

    So be inspired to find freedom by forgiving, even if the offender is dead or no longer part of your life. It’s never too late to laundry old time grudges, be they against your parents or a parent, a teacher or coach, a priest or pastor, relative…or even a stranger. And do not forget to forgive any grudges against God for the body or mind, the parents, or the kind of life you were given!

    This reflection concludes with a true story, a mini-parable about Miss Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross (1821-1912). She was well-known for her prolific forgiveness, so people said of her that she never bore a grudge. One day a good friend said to her, “Clara, surely you remember that horrible thing she said about you some years ago. It must have been so humiliating.” “No, I don’t,” replied Clara firmly. “I distinctly remember forgetting about that!"

The Freedom to Love

7/2/2014

The Freedom to Love

Dear old and new friends,

    A Fourth of July parable is a true Hollywood story about the film producer Samuel Goldwyn who wanted to buy the film rights to Radclyffe Hall’s controversial novel The Well of Loneliness. “Sir, you can’t film that,” a studio adviser said, “it’s about Lesbians!” Goldwyn replied, “All right, where they got Lesbians, we’ll use Austrians.”

    In the 1950’s and 60’s same sex love was never shown in motion pictures or publically acknowledged without direst consequences. Movie stars, sport athletes and the common person lacked the freedom to publically acknowledge their true sexuality or their love for someone of the same sex. The Fourth of July celebrates the 1776 signing of a draft of the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson. It declared, “These truths are self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Sadly those rights of liberty and equality then and for many years to come weren’t accessible to black African Americans, women of any color or anyone whose birth sexual orientation wasn’t heterosexual. Those freedoms declared so beautifully in 1776 were more a dream than a reality.

    Now 238 years later, this July 4th celebrates an evolving realization of that dream of liberty for all that includes the unalienable right to love whomever you chose, which is the heart of the on-going controversy of same-sex marriage. A wedding is first of all a joyous announcement to the community of a loving relationship of two persons as well as the ritual of their marital union. In the past ten years a radical cultural shift has occurred in America regarding sexuality and marriage. Now 19 states and the District of Columbia allow same sex marriage. Only 30% of Americans supported gay marriage in 2004, now ten years later it is 51% and growing. Today Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Lutherans allow gay clergy! How have such radical cultural changes been possible in only ten years?

    A possibility is the Hundredth Monkey theory. A study was made of a group of small islands near Japan when a few monkeys began washing their potatoes before eating them. Soon younger monkeys quickly adopted this behavior causing unrest among the old monkeys who grew agitated. In time, more and more monkeys began washing their potatoes, until the “hundredth monkey” did, reaching a critical level in collective acceptance. Then not only all the monkeys on that island, but all monkeys on the other unconnected islands began washing their potatoes!

    Instead of with fireworks, celebrate this July 4th with a fiery patriot determination to further the fulfillment of that glorious 1776 dream of freedom. Remembering the Hundredth Monkey, pledge in your thoughts and deeds to grant full equality to others, regardless of their race, religion, color or sexual orientation.

Learning to Unlearn On the 4th of July

7/4/2012

Learning to Unlearn On the 4th of July

A beneficial way to celebrate the week of the 4th of July is to have your own revolution that frees yourself of an oppressor. Declare for yourself a personal Independence Day by rebelling against what enslaves you. Is the oppressor your fear of what others may think or say about you? Is your freedom limited by church laws learned as a child that you still feel obliged to observe? Are you, as are some adults, a prisoner of resentment towards childhood teachers whose religious instructions they consider a type of child abuse?

To establish our own identity we need family and group identities, along with customs and laws to establish boundaries. As adults some of these rules learned as a child are no longer necessary, yet we can feel morally obliged to still observe them. This 4th of July those suffering from such old legal obligations can find liberation in the words of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, “We had to obey the old rules so we could know how to disobey them correctly.”

His Holiness lifts the oppressive burden of old laws by encouraging disobeying them—correctly. The first rule to properly disobey any old law is that your actions do not bring harm to you or to others. Yet, even if done correctly, to disobey an ingrained prohibitive law can be very difficult. Psychologists state it is harder to stop observing a law that forbids than one that grants permission. The reality of this principle was shown some forty years ago when the Catholic Church removed its law forbidding the eating of meat on Fridays. Some older—and also very conservative Catholics—found not to refrain from eating meat on Fridays painfully difficult, if not impossible. I would suspect other faith denominations that no longer forbid drinking alcohol and gambling have met a similar reaction.

Have a “Happy 4th of July”—and do this by examining what laws, addictions, habits or fears restrict your freedom, and then have a revolution to overthrow them! Mindful that they may be problematic religious laws, I close with a good prayer to God by the saintly 13th century Sufi Persian mystic, Rumi:

                                    “Stones rush to dance before the

                                    laughing beauty of your face.

                                    Return from hiding once more

                                    and play like fire on my fickle senses

                                    so I may learn to unlearn.…”

Skinny Dipping Anyone?

Skinny Dipping Anyone?

A Good Day to Escape

A Good Day to Escape

Pregnant Grudges

Pregnant Grudges

The Freedom to Love

The Freedom to Love

Learning to Unlearn On the 4th of July

Learning to Unlearn On the 4th of July

Edward Hays

The Haystack

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